State estimates $29.5 million to $37.8 million cost for new Mass. Pike exit between Lee and Westfield

Updated Feb 17, 2019; Posted Feb 12, 2019

Staff-Shot

Hilltown residents look over maps prepared by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation showing possible locations for a new Massachusetts Turnpike exit between Lee and Westfield. (Jim Kinney / The Republican, File)

It’ll cost between $29.5 million and $37.8 million to build new highway exit on the Massachusetts Turnpike (Interstate 90) between Exit 2 in Lee and Exit 3 in Westfield, according to recently released Massachusetts Department of Transportation cost estimates.

To supporters like state Sen. Donald Humason, R-Westfield, the new exit is a chance to bring people and investment to the lagging Hilltowns and solve a nagging rush-hour traffic snarl at Exit 3.

The cost estimates vary according to the amount of work it would take to build.

Alternative 3 at the Blandford Service Plaza in Blandford: $34 million.

The Department of Transportation’s next steps are to analyze local intersections and review the impacts a new exit would have, said spokeswoman Judith Reardon Riley. She said MassDOT expects to have the study done in May.

But to some folks who live between Westfield and Lee, the exit is a threat to the communities they love.

“I hope we can get this thing stopped right away,” said James R. Adams, who lives near Big Pond and Algerie Road in Otis. “I don’t really see the need for it at all.”

He said he and his neighbors would be less opposed to an exit at one of two proposed locations further east in Blandford, where MassDOT already has a rest stop and a maintenance facility that could accommodate the exit.

Humason is concerned about the impact vocal opposition might have on a project in which he believes.

“A number of folks in the Hilltowns are going to say, ‘We don’t want it,’ and that voice will drown out everyone else,” the senator said. “I think this is the last best chance for economic development in the Hilltowns. I’d really hate to have some well-meaning residents who are concerned about the environmental impact and the change to their community block it. And at the same time, they are not happy that the Hilltowns seem to be dying for lack of business investment and lack of residents”

Thirty miles separate Exit 2 and Exit 3, an abnormally large stretch between highway interchanges.

One oft-repeated story goes that Westfield businessmen put the kibosh on a Hilltowns exit when the highway was built because they wanted to force travelers to pass through town.

Little happened with the idea of creating a new exit until the state did away with toll plazas in favor of overhead gantries in 2016.

Humason, state Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli, D-Lenox, and state Sen. Adam Hinds, D-Pittsfield, put language in the 2018 budget bill calling for MassDOT to study and possibly build a new exit. That budget bill led to the current study.

Humason said one benefit of a new exit would be less traffic coming off Exit 3 and snaking down Elm Street and out Franklin Street from Westfield to the Hilltowns.

“We have to figure out how we are going to pay for it,” Humason said. “I think that could be done quickly through the Legislature.”

Letting the plans sit without legislative action would make it less likely the work would ever get funded, Humason said.